News

Easing Backup on the Severn River Bridge
Additional eastbound lane now open
If the Bay Bridge is the gateway to the Eastern Shore, the Severn River Bridge, five miles to the west, is the gateway to the Bay Bridge.
At peak driving times, that gateway turns into a major bottleneck.

Like their owners, wooden boats don’t live forever. But the 1948 Trumpy yacht Counterpoint survives piece by salvaged piece

Kate Fitzgerald

The Trumpy yacht Counterpoint waited dry-docked at Herrington Harbor North for the right person to come along and shine her up, clean her decks and splash her into the water again. That person would have to match the dedication and vision of her former owner, William Watkins, who passed away in 2015.

An army of invading crabs has disappeared. But scientists are skeptical about whether they’re gone for good or simply hiding. Now the search is back on: As warmer temperatures lure people onto the water, Smithsonian scientists are asking watermen and other boaters to report any sightings of the elusive Chinese mitten crab.

Share a moment with the student athletes of Calvert County’s Special Olympics, and you may well burst into joyful tears at one more smile, one more hug, one more high-five, one more explosion of laughter.

Good News from the ­Bottom of the Bay
Grasses surpass 100,000 acres
When you get back to the water this spring, expect to see things growing in it. Rooted grasses rise in columns from the bottom. Horizontally, long fronds swim in the current. Those Bay grasses are firsthand evidence of good news proclaimed this week.

Before running for mayor of Annapolis, restaurateur Gavin Buckley ran in high heels and a skirt during a men-in-high-heels sprint at the 2015 Annapolis Fringe Festival. That was nothing out of the ordinary for the South African-born Buckley, who grew up in Perth, West Australia.

You could celebrate Cinco de Mayo with tacos and Mexican beer. But one Southern Anne Arundel County fitness center is hoping you will also celebrate fitness and health this May 5.
Chesapeake Health and Fitness Club in Deale is sponsoring its first 5K that day, taking runners on an easy, picturesque path along Rockhold Creek.

When the federal budget request for 2018 proposed to eliminate funding for the Environmental Protection Agency’s Chesapeake Bay Program Office, Bay-lovers were alarmed. The EPA’s Bay program is “the glue that holds the state/federal partnership together,” in the analysis of Chesapeake Bay Foundation President Will Baker. EPA program office money is the primary source of support for coordinating, monitoring and modeling progress toward Bay restoration.

In covering the around-the-world Volvo Ocean Race through the years, I met sailing legends who seemed larger than life: Torben Grael, Mike Sanderson, Paul Cayard, Ian Walker and Bouwe Bekking, who is skippering Team Brunel in the current race.
The Volvo Ocean Race is the preeminent physical challenge on earth. It makes climbing Mt. Everest and the Tour de France look like cake walks. The sailors endure danger and tests of endurance that stretch the limits of mere mortals on a daily basis.

Local students are stepping up, speaking out and marching for a safe education

Shelby Conrad

Right here in Annapolis, students are assembling behind their colleagues in Parkland to speak up for their right to a safe education.
Mackenzie Boughey, a sophomore at the Severn School in Severna Park, watched with rising unease as the tragedy at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, overwhelmed television and social media. First she felt horror. Then inspiration.